Moving Beyond Biker Chic

You're wild. You're free. You're a biker on snow. Of course you don't care about the history and the measurements and the general skinny on snowboarding, but we're going to tell you anyway.

The sport goes back 25 years to Tom Sims, who claims he was inspired while riding a skateboard on icy New Jersey sidewalks. He built the first 30-inch plywood snowboard in 1963 in a high school shop class. What grade he got for ushering in a brand new sport is lost to the ages.

Sims built his first commercial snowboard in 1976. Current industry leader Jake Burton, a former investment banker whose name is now on the bottom of a lot of boards, sold his first one in 1978.

The number of snowboarders has been growing by 15 percent for the last three seasons, while the number of downhill skiers has held steady. Out of every 10 people schussing down ski slopes across the country, at least one is a snowboarder. Industry watchers like Ski Industries America expect the snowboarding population to get older. (Right now, the Ski Industry group says the bulk of snowboarders -- 42.2 percent -- are between the ages of 12 and 17, and 71.2 percent of them are male.)

The boards are similar in makeup to skis. Both use skins of fiberglass or Kevlar fabric, and sheets of aluminum or plastic, that are layered over a core of wood. The boards, like skis, have metal edges for carving on hard snow and a polyethylene base that can be waxed.

The boards come in three styles: free- riding, alpine and freestyle.

Free-riding boards are long, stiff and narrow. They're good for carving turns.

Alpine boards are even stiffer and have the most radical side cut. They are best on extreme slopes.

Freestyle boards are like a big, flat piece of plywood. They're what you'll probably get if you go rent one on the slopes. They're much more forgiving of the beginner.

Then there's the boot. What was once simply a Sorrel boot -- a waterproof, ugly but functional snowboot -- has become a high-tech, stiff boot that supports the ankle.